How An anti-corruption candidate could make a difference in The presidential race

Certainly, one can accuse Democrats of supporting reform in principle while taking large sums of money from wealthy donors in practice. But I'm sympathetic to the view that these are the rules of the game, and you have to win the game to change the rules. Lessig himself urged supporters of his Mayday PAC to "embrace the irony" in getting rich donors to spend big money to get big money out of politics.

While campaign reform used to have bipartisan support, with prominent backers including John McCain and Barry Goldwater, today the main obstacle is uniform Republican opposition, particularly in the Senate, and even to uncontroversial reforms such as improved transparency.